


Five to One

by raewise



Series: Kit Ashbourne [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: F/M, Post-Dead Money, somewhat canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 01:29:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6218275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raewise/pseuds/raewise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You only need one bullet to kill a man. Her sniper rifle can hold five.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five to One

**Author's Note:**

> Featuring Kit Ashbourne, my NCR-aligned sniper. 
> 
> Title from "5 to 1" by the Doors
> 
> Warnings: Misogynistic language, cussing, canon-typical violence (but nothing graphic)

Benny is the empty space on the left side of the bed. He’s cold and vacant and cruel but you can’t help but roll over and enjoy the way the sheets feel on your skin. He’s the sound a Sunset Sarsaparilla bottle makes when you pop the cap off it, sly and whispery but loud. So loud. Benny is a conman and a fraud and he’s one of the most interesting folks in New Vegas Kit’s met yet.

She thinks about him as she rolls a poker chip in her palm, keenly eyeing the dealer as he shows her card. 21 exactly. Kit smirks. She cashes in and thinks about him, sips a beer with Boone and thinks about him. Some drunk-off-his-knocker dumbass slurs at her about her being an “NCR cow” and “hope your fuckbuddy there shows you who’s in charge tonight, you little bitch! Whore!” Kit holds Boone back when he tries to make a scene about it. She thinks about Benny yet again, what he’d do to the guy, whether or not he would’ve held Boone back.

She’s walking in the Mojave with her First Recon beret proudly on display. Her shoulders are sunburned and peeling from the hot desert sun, but she’s content. She has enough caps to be comfortable for awhile, enough food to keep her full. Kit watches the smoke from her cigarette unfurl towards the sky, to the moon she can see prematurely poking her head out between blankets of baby blue.  

You only need one bullet to kill a man. Her sniper rifle can hold five. 

Staring down at Benny, tied up and on his knees, she thinks about what he did when he was in her position. Two bullets to the head and she still didn't die. Instead she rose from the ashes and hunted him down like he was a rabid dog.

“Truth is the game was rigged from the start,” he had said, pistol trained between her eyebrows. Another time he told her: “I’m playing for keeps.”

And nows he bows his head in humility and calls her his legacy. He doesn’t think he is going to live, and so the Chairman of the Chairmen lets Courier Six press a rifle to his temple and exact her revenge. 

Only it doesn’t turn out the way either of them expected. Kit slides a bobby pin between his lips, and Benny grasps at the stealth boy with his grubby grifter’s hands. Their fingers brush.

Life is a gamble, Kit thinks, and she's damn good at blackjack.

Kit barely escapes with her life, and she almost laughs at Arcade’s shocked expression as the whole camp rains bullets down on them like a hellstorm. But she has the platinum chip, and has her life, and Mr. House’s approval. 

It’s a long time until she sees Benny again, after she’s been to the Sierra Madre and kissed herself a short-term girl with constellations in her eyes and the world in her fingertips. Now she’s situated in the fat city again, watching Bruce Isaac like she used to back in New Reno. She’s swinging her leg to the beat of his backtrack, eager for someone to pay for her drinks. She knows what a good pair of kitten heels does to a person’s judgement. A man sits across from her and she just has to look at his square hands to know who it is.

“Baby, it ain’t like you to flake,” she says, looking at him through her eyelashes. Cass is a table over, draped over it like a tablecloth. Her snores are barely audible beneath Isaac’s soulful voice.

A wry grin. He’s not wearing that horrible checkered suit, instead in a more low-key button down and slacks. He looks like a tourist, she muses as she pulls out his lighter from between her breasts, lighting a smoke for him. Benny touches the back of her hand, tracing a scar a ghost person gave her.

“You’re the one who dropped off the face of the earth, pussycat.” His eyes bore into her face, and she lets a curl fall over her cheek so he can brush it away. His hands are shaking when he does. “Nobody knew where you were. Had me all concerned.”

“Almost sounds like you care, Ben-man.” 

“Oh, get bent.”

She snickers, digging around in her clutch for a Sierra Madre chip, sliding it across the table to him. “Tried my hand at treasure hunting. I had a  _ blast _ .” Nobody except for Veronica has laughed at the pun, and only after Kit explained it.

Benny examines the chip. “Sierra Madre, huh? Find anything good?”

“Just a real pretty gal and some explosives strapped around my neck. Oh, and Dean fuckin’ Domino.”

“No shit?” He smiles at her, all teeth. “He as charming as me?”

She rolls her eyes and licks the edge of her glass, tasting the spice of rum. “Surprisingly, his head’s half as big as yours. So about the size of the Earth.” 

Isaac’s song closes and the Aces Theater is full of uncomfortable silence. Cass snorts in her sleep and moans, smacking her lips. Kit reaches over and rubs her back. The caravaneer sleeps on. 

That night Kit explores Benny’s vertebrae like she has the Mojave. She maps out the hills and valleys and kisses every star on his collar. His sweat makes the bed too hot, but his mouth tastes like bourbon and ash and oversight. He leaves butterfly-shaped bruises between her thighs, as well as himself circled around her in the morning. 

She asks him about how he’s managed to survive in the Mojave for so long over coffee, her chilly toes trailing up and down his calf. He stretches out his arms, flashing his armpits at her and rolls his neck. She can hear his joints pop.

“You writing a book?” he asks, chuckling as she shows him her middle finger. “A man’s gotta have some secrets, dig?”

Kit twists one of her rings around her thumb. “If he’s a shark, sure. You’re no honest man, are ya?”

Benny gulps down a mouthful of coffee. His eyes are black in the Presidential Suite’s hazy lighting. Kit can hear Lily chatting with herself in the other room, Arcade talking at Boone, and Cass grumbling through her hangover. “You offering to make an honest man out of little old me, dolly?”

Kit rests her chin on her knuckles, showing off her teeth. “More like offering to make you my callboy. It’s a good gig, daddy.”

A bark of laughter. “I don’t have much in the way of caps. What kind’ve benefits would I get?” he jokes. “It ain’t head of the Chairmen,” he mourns, “but I can’t exactly grab that position back from Swank after all I’ve done.” 

“Hey,” she says, touching his knee with her heel, “if it means anything, I just want you to know that I forgive you.”

His mouth hangs open, his fists flexing on the tabletop. “I  _ shot _ you.”

She snorts. “I’ve shot more folk than I can count. To you I was just a mailman with something you needed. I’ve killed so many people, probably good people. Just ‘cause they were standing between point A and B.” She pours herself another cup of coffee. The rim of the ceramic mug is chipped in two places. “I’m no hypocrite. Who am I to judge?”

The look in Benny’s eyes is almost fond. His mouth curls upwards. “Well well. Guess you ain’t the saint I’ve been painting you for.” He leans forwards across the table and brushes the corner of her mouth with his. Kit wonders if he could catch a bullet between those pearly white teeth of his. “That’s alright, doll. I’m a bit of a sinner myself.”

Kit stands at Hoover Dam, looking over the Colorado. She’s little more than a soldier, she thinks. There’s a breeze in the air, and she enjoys the way it ruffles her hair. She takes off her beret and holds it to her chest, running her hand through her curls and ruining ringlets. Boone stands behind her, arms crossed over his chest. He doesn’t say anything, but nudges her arm and hands her a flask of whiskey.

Boulder City is a pile of rubble in the distance, and the heart of New Vegas is a sparkling stream of light and noise. Courier Six thinks about New Reno, growing up surrounded by whores and drugs and violence. She thinks about Benny growing up scalping folks for kicks, killing his tribe leader with his bare hands and signing his tribe over to the devil. Trading in his knives and rags for Marlboros and a checkered suit. 

Offering Boone a smoke, he shakes his head with his lip curled. “Hate Luckies,” he grumbles.

“Picky, picky.”

Kit is going to win the Dam for her country, and she’s going to go back to the sweetheart keeping the bed warm for her at home. And one day she’ll look down at the glistening waters of Lake Mead and not want to jump off the edge. The stars will continue to shimmer across the black sky and Benny will continue to kiss her in just the right way.

Like a phoenix, Kit will rise.

**Author's Note:**

> Boone only smokes Camels btw.
> 
> Hope you liked my pretentious metaphors haha!!
> 
> [Buy me a coffee!](http://ko-fi.com/I3I59IAV)


End file.
